Desk Drawer of Broken Dreams
by Wolves of Xing
Summary: Oneshot. He had wanted to help so many people. Funny, how all those around him seemed to suffer for it.


...Well, I was listening to _Boulevard of Broken Dreams_ by Greenday while trying to think of a drabble idea...and I got this, lol.

Post series, with lost of angst and spoilers. Beware!

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**Desk Drawer of Broken Dreams**

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It was late when Roy Mustang finally retired to his office. The sky outside was dark and turbulent, the air rent by streaks of lightning and vengeful thunderheads.

It fit his mood perfectly.

Not bothering to turn on the lights, he made his way to his desk, guided by the light of the storm. It was ethereally quiet, the noise of the outside world completely cut off.

He was alone. Accompanied only by the omni-present solitude that he would never be free of.

The paper clenched in his pale fist attested to that.

Drowning in the foreboding silence, Mustang merely sat in the chair, not bothering to look at the letter. He didn't need to. He had written every word.

He had sat in the dark and despair and memorised every letter, down to the last word, to make sure it was perfect.

Too bad it would never be handed in.

He took off his eye patch and rubbed absent-mindedly at his blind, left eye, which had been aching incessantly today. Or maybe it was just the headache threatening to overwhelm him. It could be either. Or both.

His hand hesitantly reached for the handle of the bottom drawer in his desk. This one was different from the others, the keyhole gleaming dully in the lightning. It was covered in a thin layer of dust, unused, neglected.

Ignored.

His other hand reached for the watch in his pocket, opened it and extracted the small, silver key from inside. The key fit inside the lock and he turned.

The drawer slid open.

He had never wanted to open this compartment of misery again.

On the top was a crumpled picture, black and white and faded with age. It was creased all over, like it had been folded in every way to fit into various pockets and places.

It depicted a small boy, with charcoal hair and eyes, standing beside two adults. Though the woman's hair was red and the man's eyes were brown, they were unmistakably his parents.

The child in front of them was happy.

Unknowledgeable of the fact that not long after this picture was taken he would no longer have a home and family to return to.

War was like that.

Roy carefully picked up the photo and discarded it on top of his desk, moving on to the next memory in the pile.

It wasn't a big pile. But a picture says a thousand words and a word begets a thousand regrets.

The next article was another photo. This one, however, was newer, it's image clear and glossy, the picture bright with color and detail.

It showed two young soldiers. One was laughing hysterically, completely ruining the would-be serious picture, while the other tried to look angry through his unrelenting grin.

They were both happy.

Neither of them are today.

If Hughes could only see him now…Roy gave a wry chuckle, his smile masochistic and pained.

If Maes could see him now, he would drag him out to get so drunk they couldn't stand and then they'd catch hell for it in the office the next day.

But Maes Hughes wasn't there.

Life was like that.

The picture of a younger Maes Hughes and Roy Mustang was discarded as well.

His hands shook as he reached for next item…a pair of gloves.

His first pair of ignition gloves. The ones that he washed over and over, hysterically, frantically, trying to get the crimson stains off.

It was hard to get blood off, or on, gloves designed to decimate and annihilate from a distance.

Their once pristine white exterior had been ruined forever. Much like the last shred of innocence in his soul. After all, these gloves had seen Ishbal.

Hell was like that.

The gloves were tossed haphazardly onto the desk and he continued on.

Another picture. All the torment he could bring upon himself, unleashed by these simple photographs from what seemed to be a lifetime ago.

From the confines of the picture, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, looked back at him. His face was set into an annoyed frown, his eyes brimming with the determination and defiance even captured in the indifference of his photographic self.

Right underneath his brother's glaring expression, was one film-captured Alphonse Elric. A hollow suit of armor.

He had wanted to help those two boys, no more than children. He had wanted to help so many people.

Funny, how all those around him seemed to suffer for it.

Roy Mustang carefully gathered all of the objects scattered across his desk into a pile again.

At the bottom went his letter. His resignation letter.

Which would never see the eyes of any but himself.

War, life, hell…and suffering.

But with a military controlled by people too aggressive to be controlled by a weak-willed parliament, he would remain here, helping whom he could, living for those who had given their lives for his.

It was the least he could do.

He couldn't spend every night in here with all the shattered pieces of his broken dreams.

It was his Desk Drawer of Broken Dreams.

How pathetic was that?

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--Owari--

--Fin--


End file.
